Automatic cabling machines are being used more and more, which comprise a conveyor serving work stations which select conducting wires, cut them into sections of determined length, strip the ends of the wires and crimp thereon male or female connecting pieces which may have different shapes and which will hereinafter be referred to as terminals.
Mechanical crimping of the terminals is generally effected by placing one end of stripped wire and a terminal between two press plates which bear punches and dies which bend crimping fins on the wire and which deform them permanently so that the terminal is crimped on the end of the wire. This operation is very delicate to carry out mechanically. If the minimum distance between the two plates at the moment of crimping is too large, crimping is not sufficiently tight and the fixation of the terminal risks not withstanding a traction on the wire. If, on the contrary, the height of crimping is too small, the wire and the terminal risk being crushed and the resistance of the electrical connection between the wire and the terminal is no longer in accordance with theoretical values.
It is an object of the present invention to provide means for mechanically crimping a terminal on one end of a conducting wire, with the possibility of adjusting the height of crimping with very high precision, and with the possibility of this height of crimping respecting a reference value determined in each case as a function of the diameter and nature of the wire as well as of the shape and nature of the terminal.
The processes according to the invention are of the known type in which a terminal is mechanically crimped on a conducting wire by using a crimping press comprising a fixed plate and a mobile plate on which a die and a crimping punch are respectively fixed.